The Twelve Days Of Vacation

On the twelfth day of vacation my teenager gave to me

the back to school of "leave me alone, I'm getting up"

11 moans of vacation is to short 

10 straight hours of sleeping

9 texts of "can I stay out a little longer" 

8 different plans for New Years Eve

7 hours of playing video games

6 kids sleeping in the basement

5 minutes of peace

4 hugs and thank you's for great gifts and dinners

3 ride requests

2 loads of laundry 

and mornings free of "get up you're going to be late."

A Quick Parenting Quiz

A Parenting Quiz

1. When your teen walks in the door after school, do you ask these three questions? How much homework do you have? How did you do on your quiz? Did you talk to your teacher about...?
2. Do you spend your weeknights walking in and out of your teen's room asking? When are you going to put this laundry away? Have you finished your homework? Did you take the trash out?
3. Do you spend your post school hours telling your teen multiple times to: Get off instagram and do your homework! Stop texting and do your homework! Get off that video game and do your homework!
4. At least one time per week, do you find something that your teen has done that you can compliment?

How did you do? If you had 4 yes's congratulations!!! If you answered with 3 no's and a yes congratulations!!!! if you answered no to the last question, lets talk!

Obviously when parents come to me for coaching they are usually struggling with the first three questions. How can I get my teen to do what I want them to do? Why doesn't my teen listen to me? Why doesn't my teen tell me anything?  I have found that there is a direct correlation to the non-listening, non-action taking of teens to the amount of positive feedback they are given by their parents, there isn't much given.  Most parents are so worried that if they don't stay on top of everything their teen needs to do to be successful, then they will be at a disadvantage when  it come to the important thing, like getting into college for instance. This approach to parenting can be extremely time consuming, exhausting and mostly unrewarding. Putting yourself in the role of CEO of your child's life, automatically puts you in that secluded corner office worrying about the success of your "company" and out of touch with your "employees".

I was watching a news story recently about the online company Zappos. The CEO of that company
did not have a corner office, in fact, he didn't have an office at all. He "lived" in the same cubicle as the rest of his staff, right in the middle of the action. The work-life atmosphere at Zappo's is designed to promote hard-work while providing their employees with food, fun and lots and lots of kudo's for jobs well done. They have found that it is the food, fun and kudos that make their employees want to work their asses off for the company. Nobody minds the long hours and the cubicles because they feel understood and appreciated.

I think this is a model that can translate well to parenting. You probably aren't having much fun anymore with your teen, as they stay as far away from you as possible, worried that every time they see you it means you are on them about something. Kind of like that worry you feel when you see the "boss coming." Uh oh, now what did I do wrong, you might think. Gotta turn this around. Try making your nightly rounds without questions or comments. Maybe bring up an unexpected treat or snack you know is a favorite of your teen's and saying: "Thought you might like this treat..love u" and walk out the door.

I talked with a parent recently who is all over her teen, worried that he just wasn't "working" hard enough. His attitude towards her was becoming toxic as a result. The good news was this kid was a really good kid. But she had forgotten that in her worry that he wasn't on top of everything academically that he should have been, ie missing homework assignments that were resulting in lowering of his grades, avoidance of college essay and application writing, that she was not paying attention to the good stuff he was doing. He was not drinking or taking drugs, though most of his friends were. He was managing a part-time job. He was saving money, not squandering it away like most of his friends. Lots of good stuff.

I sent her home to put a little "fun, food and kudos" back into their life together. At a dinner out at his favorite fast food restaurant, rather than asking a million questions and lecturing him about his "future", the mom told him how proud she was of the decisions he made in his life that must be hard, like not drinking when he was with his friends, like how seriously he took his sport, like how conscientious he was about his job even though it meant getting up wicked early on a Saturday morning. She told him she was going to back off with all his college stuff as she had confidence in his ability to follow though if this was something HE really wanted for himself. I think this boy thought he had died and gone to heaven. As soon as she understood and appreciated what good stuff he was doing, he then accepted responsibility for what he wasn't doing, and they had one of the most honest, and fulfilling conversations they had ever had.

This Zappo's CEO is on to something. If you want to get the most out of your relationship with your teen you have to keep it balanced. Stay on and interested in those things you know are important but never ever forget the fun,  the food and  the kudos!

Wake Up You Sleepy Head!

There are those teenagers who never need a wake up call, god love em! But for most parents mornings are traumatic. The pit in your stomach feeling of here we go again. the abuse, the yelling, the cajoling, the threatening, none of which really works. Here's the thing, your kids will eventually get up. They know that, and you know that. But as long as your are a willing partner and enabler, they will depend on you to make sure that happens! Works for them!!! But starting your day this way every day, does not work for you!!

Let them know today what you will and won't do to help them with the new morning wake-up

YOU WILL NOT:

1. Spend the first hour of the morning making it your mission to get them up.

2. Listen to their usual morning abuse as you continue to update them about how much time they have left before the bus/ride/walk to school is approaching.

3. Give them a lateness excuse because they just couldn't get their ass out of bed.

4. Give them a ride if they choose to stay in bed and miss their bus/ride/walk to school

YOU WILL:

1. Let them know that you understand that this transition to early AM's is really hard. You understand that they do not want to get up this early, and that they hate it.

2. Share with them what you are not willing to do with respect to getting up on time.(use above list)

3. Share with them what you are willing to do:

• Work with them to come up with a plan. Perhaps you are willing to give them two wake-up calls. But if they choose to ignore those reminders you will NOT continue to shake, scream, or otherwise annoy the hell of them until they get out of bed.
• Be happy to drive them to school or bus stop at the appointed time. But if they choose to not to get up in time to make the ride, they will be responsible for their own transportation that day. DO NO LET THEM CALL UBER UNLESS THE ACCOUNT USES THEIR DEBIT CARD AND MONEY!!! (SEE NOTE BELOW)You will not wait around for them to get up and out!
• Buy any new required clocks or alarms they might need to rouse them out of their deepest sleep

NOTE: I have recently been made aware that teens are using UBER as their own private limousine service. Thanks mom and dad for making it so easy for me to be entitled and lazy!! I know driving kids hither and yon is a pain in the ass, but that is just part of the parenting job description. Allowing your kids to get rides on demand feeds their already entitled little egos that "I want what I want when I want it!!!" DON'T DO IT. Trust me you will regret it. I will write further about this in a blog next week.

Your teens have got to learn to be responsible for getting up on-time. My college freshman tell me that this is their biggest challenge when they get to college. Most of them report that they sleep through most of their first classes because they never developed their own plan for wake-up, instead relying on their annoying parents to do it for them. This is your practice time. It takes years to develop good AM rituals that work. This will take some trial and error. But please stick with it. You both deserve a better start to your day.